Our Parliamentary Debate

We had a very exciting session in class 4. We have been learning all about our parliamentary system this term and last week we had the opportunity to take part in our own mock parliamentary debate. We separated into political parties and took opposing sides of the House (our classroom). We chose our own Speaker and made sure to use the appropriate terms during our debate. We learned that, in parliament, MPs do not refer to each other by name but by a variety of formal titles. This is intended to keep things polite during the debate and stop things getting too rowdy! In addition, we learned that parliamentarians do not address each other directly in debates; instead they refer to members of their own party as ‘my Honourable friend’ and members of other parties as ‘the Honourable Member’ or ‘the Honourable Lady or Gentleman’. We tried hard to use this formal language in our own debate – some of us found it harder than others to say in character! We honed our debating skills, discussing Bills we had ourselves created. These included ‘The Bouncy Homes Bill’, ‘The Plastic Bill’ and The School Parking Bill’.

The response from the children was very positive. A year 6 girl said, “It was really exciting because it was fun to debate the topics – I liked debating the Bouncy Homes Bill because some people had really funny ideas about why it wouldn’t work.” While a year 6 boy commented, “I really enjoyed it because the realism felt very satisfying – I felt like I was really in a political debate. I enjoyed getting stuck in!”